ReaperCon 2014 - Day 4 Wrapping it Up

Sunday is my day at the convention. I think I managed to sleep in till almost 7am with nothing on my schedule in the morning. I spent a lot of time in the contest room giving miniature critiques and I was able to talk to a couple of the artists whose pieces I really admired (and had judged as well). I think I started off with Tonya Lynn's (Nissiana in the Reaper Forums I think) ReaperCon Sophie (I think this is the 2005 or 2006 convention Sophie). Its a beautiful piece and I had a good time talking to her about what was great and what could be improved. I think I followed that with getting to talk with Erin Hartwell (Corporea I think) about her New Ride diorama. And yes it has a few flaws and it could be improved but its a fabulous piece and earned every award it was given.

After that it was auction time, where I get up to face my fears about standing in front of a large audience and auction stuff away. I love every minute of it. There was some great stuff on the table too, hardwood dice from Artisan Dice, a painted miniature from Corporea (Erin Hartwell), A prototype resin master of Dragons Don't Share II (coming as part of Reaper's 2nd Kickstarter; The Return of Mr Bones), a prototype resin master of Nethymaul (in the original larger size) and of course a ton of stuff with the Reaper and convention logos on it. The show ends with the end of the auction and I think its great that we end on such a high note rather than the show just fading away as people leave.

A few more pictures, mostly from the artists' area and some misc. I'm sure I have a few more on my camera when I get around to downloading the card.

Jason Wiebe and Tre Manor, they might be discussing sculpting, but more likely its along the lines of "I killed a bear with my bare hands" kind of conversation.

Angela Imrie and Rhonda Bender already talking about painting

Gene Van Horne, soon to be moving back to Colorado!

Adrienne Hawkins, she keeps things running smooth...or else

Heidi (Pixel) in her first game of the con, I believe her dinosaur is about to eat Shannon (ReaperBryan's wife). Yea, it was that kind of game.

James Wappel, attending the show for the first time. I don't think we scared him off. Was able to talk with him on Sunday night for quite a while about painting. Really has some great ideas.

ReaperCon 2014 - Day 3

Saturday is a pretty busy day for me at ReaperCon. There wasn't really time to take a lot of pictures. I had one vendor coming in today that had to be setup and had to arrange for some demo tables in the vendor room as well. I'm not fond of stuff getting thrown at me at the last minute. I also spend a good portion of the day judging miniatures as well. The Saturday entries had to be judged (although there weren't that many) as well as decisions about Best Display, Best Theme, Judges Choice (for something that was really cool in our opinion), Reaper Sophies (Gold, Silver and Bronze) for single miniature, diorama and open (these had to be or constructed exclusively from Reaper Miniatures). 

The Artists banquet was Saturday night and I shared a table with Pixel (Heidi J), Gene Van Horne, Anne Foerster, Bob Ridolfi, and Julie Guthrie. After that it was out to the main room for the awards ceremony. I think the only pictures I have from Saturday are from the ceremony.

If it wasn't for this set of screens in the main room I would never know what is going on. The entries into the painting competition were shown all weekend on these screens. This time though we had a slide show prepared. 

Ron making a view annoucements

Anne getting up her nerve

A quick huddle away from the microphone. That's Rhonda Bender on the left, Ali Bailey in the back, Jessica Rich (In the Tardis dress) and, of course, Ann Foerster.

Anne thanking the painting crew. Some how I got demoted and Rhonda Bender was the 2nd in command (as it were). Next year she can do all the extra work!
I believe she said that we gave out 258 awards at this show. I'll have to find out what the breakdown was. I know that we had to cast more silver medals earlier in the day.

Who wants to go first?

Lined up and ready to hand out boxes of medals.

ReaperCon 2014 - Day 2

Day 2 was quite the busy day for me. I spend a considerable amount of time putting competition medals in little red boxes. Not very exciting. There was a banquet in the evening to induct a couple of new people into the Reaper Hall of Fame. This year it was Werner Klocke and Derek Schubert. After that it was straight in to start judging the competition miniatures. There were a lot of entries, 401 when we started. We work in teams of 3 for the scoring and we split the work between 3 teams. We finished in about 2 hours. Lots of fantastic entries this year and some pretty difficult decisions on scoring them. I couldn't get a good picture of my entry yesterday so I'll see what I can do when I get home. Here are a few pictures of the day, mostly focused on my favorite entries in the painting competition.

Bin of Bronze Medals

Box of presentation boxes

Boxes, that in theory, now have bronze medals in them

Dan Clark

Michael Proctor
That rabbit has a serious stash of loot under the snow

Mary Profitt

Mary Profitt

Rhonda Bender

John Bowery

Michelle Blastenbrei

Aaron Lovejoy

Anne Cooper

Angela Imrie
Artemis by Hasslefree, one of my favorite minis by them.

Mary Profitt

Tonya Lynn

Unknown

Tish Wolter

Aaron Lovejoy

Jessica Rich

Michael Proctor

Rhonda Bender

Heidi Jugovic

Glen Phillips

Ian Markon
(This was Best in Show at Genghis Con XXXV)

Michelle Blastenbrei

Meg Maples

Erin Hartwell
This one is my favorite piece in the shoe and one of the best dioramas if have seen in a long time. It shouts Old West and its fitting that it racked up its fair share of awards; silver medal in dioramas, a silver Sophie for dioramas and Best Theme. I managed to be one of the judges for this piece all three times, I really wanted to score it gold but it has a few issues, but its on the razor edge and wouldn't take much to get it over the top. Watch those mold lines Erin!

ReaperCon 2014 - Day 1

Well, this is mostly day 1. I arrived on Wednesday and went to the meet and greet that was held at the Reaper facility. Good BBQ was provided. I helped with some of the setup at the hotel as well as making sure my vendors area was ready to go.

Jason Weibe, Bobby Jackson, Tim Peaslee (Castlebuilder)

Checking out Tim's newest Hirst Arts build
Gene Van Horne on the left, with Bob Ridolfi and Julie Guthrie behind him

Aaron Lovejoy, Jason Wiebe

Up early on Thursday because I was hoping I would have vendors in to starting setup up. They did, eventually start wandering in. I spent my day keeping the vendors on task and working on my contest entry. I just figured out that I missed a detail and I'm not quite sure how to handle it right now so I'm going to sleep on it a bit and decide what to do with it tomorrow. Entries don't have to be in till 6pm so I have plenty of time to finish off this last detail. I may try to use the colors I used on the base and tie things together a bit more. I'll try and get a picture of her tomorrow before she goes in the competition.

Cheryl Storm (ladystorm), Reaper Bryan

Reaper Booth almost ready to go

Stage with a gallows

Setting up ReaperVision. Entries in the painting competition are photographed and a running slide show is displayed on these monitors

Register

Sculptors getting ready, left to right Adrienne Hawkins (not a sculptor) Bobby Jackson, Chris Leiws, Julie Guthrie, Bob Ridolfi, Andy (Tailspinner) and Victoria Lamb

The artist and painting hall

Bricks and Boards, Lego Vendor

The dinosaur game. The Reaper crew time travels to the age of dinosaurs to figure out what paints should be used for dinosaurs. Things go badly.

The Dungeon Crawl (4x8 foot board made from Hirst Arts bricks)

A game board, maybe a southwestern style

Paradise western town (MiniCannuck, I belive)

A third western town, with Train!

Dinosaur game in play

Dungeon Crawl in play

Bobie's Hobby setting up

Team Frog demo board

Team Frog booth

Tabletop Plus, but you can probably read that.

Dreamscarred Press

Gamer Nation

Artisan Dice, handcrafted wooden dice

Their line of pens

I think I'll call it a night for day 1